OMG Trump is trending.

Unbelievable.

Trump is now playing back clips of various governors praising him pic.twitter.com/LiwAM8OgyB

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 13, 2020

That is terrifying on so many levels.… Read the rest

Oh, is that a fact. States can’t do anything without the approval of the president of the United States – according to Donald Dimwit.

TRUMP on possibility states won't want to relax social distancing as quick he would like: "The president of the United States calls the shots … it's a decision for the president … they can't do anything without the approval of the president." pic.twitter.com/a9f73Z8G3N

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 13, 2020

He’s apparently doing the craziest press briefing rally yet, including playing a campaign video.… Read the rest

It’s fine. It’s fine. I’m sure it will be fine.

Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts reported on Monday that President Donald Trump will soon announce a council to re-open the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, a plan that was quickly ripped apart on Twitter.

Is Fox News Trump’s press secretary now? Because if not why is Fox News announcing such things instead of a press secretary or other member of Trump’s administration?

The current members of the council to “re-open America” include Mark Meadows, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Steven Mnuchin, Larry Kudlow, Robert Lighthizer, and Wilbur Ross, none of whom are experts in medicine, science, or public health.

Also, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner aren’t … Read the rest

They’re doing what now?

Relax guys. We’re in good hands. This will be handled smoothly and wisely. pic.twitter.com/NlL3JMedlw

— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) April 13, 2020

What do they need a “council” for? Trump just said it’s his to decide, all by himself, with his magic absolute powers.

But if they do need a council…oh never mind, it’s too obvious to bother saying.

Ivanka and Jared, because when I need advice on the economy, I turn to the failed handbag-plagiarizing daughter who the president wants to quote-unquote "date," if that's what we're charitably calling it, and her overleveraged and underqualified idiot slumlord husband

— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) April 13, 2020

Ivanka and Jared – couldn't get security clearance

Steve Mnuchin –

NPR reminds us that Trump declared a national emergency a month ago on March 13.

In a Rose Garden address, flanked by leaders from giant retailers and medical testing companies, he promised a mobilization of public and private resources to attack the coronavirus.

“We’ve been working very hard on this. We’ve made tremendous progress,” Trump said. “When you compare what we’ve done to other areas of the world, it’s pretty incredible.”

But very little of what he promised actually happened.

NPR’s Investigations Team dug into each of the claims made from the podium that day. And rather than a sweeping national campaign of screening, drive-through sample collection and lab testing, it found a smattering of small pilot projects and aborted

Trump is bullshitting about his Absolute Power to do whatever he feels like doing, again.

For the purpose of creating conflict and confusion, some in the Fake News Media are saying that it is the Governors decision to open up the states, not that of the President of the United States & the Federal Government. Let it be fully understood that this is incorrect….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 13, 2020

It’s not the news media, it’s just reality. He can say “Let it be understood…” all he wants, but that doesn’t make the thing he wants us to understand true. Let it be understood that Donald Trump of Queens is a bumbling blowhard.

….It is the decision of

Now there’s an argument for you. Trans woman Gemma Stone has always leaned Labour but there’s just one problem: all this here transphobia.

A number of transphobes retain their membership despite using the hashtag #ExpelMe to ask to be expelled for transphobia. Many of them support hate groups which almost exclusively push for trans exclusionary policies. While Keir Starmer himself refused to sign a pledge condemning these groups stating he doesn’t want the issue to become a “political football”, two of his fellow contenders in the Labour leadership race did.

The fourth contender who didn’t sign, Emily Thornberry, spoke out in support of trans rights after the event, but said we should be careful about calling things

Media Matters reported recently:

Fox News host Sean Hannity has stood out among the network’s many misinformers about the coronavirus pandemic. From encouraging viewers to try unproven treatments to downplaying the lethality of coronavirus compared to other diseases to defending President Donald Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, Hannity has downplayed coronavirus dozens of times on his Fox and radio programs over the past month.

Why? The virus doesn’t distinguish between left and right, so what’s the motivation for a Fox News hack to tell lies about it? I suppose it must be the fact that Trump has made such a dog’s breakfast of dealing with it. Great: so to defend a lying murderous hack, another hack with a huge audience … Read the rest

Another way the US is not a developed country:

Across the city of New Orleans and throughout the state of Louisiana, in America’s deep south, similar scenes of mourning have played out among hundreds of African American families. Louisiana is among the states hardest-hit by Covid-19, with 755 deaths marking one of the highest per-capita death rates in the country. Seventy per cent of those who have died here are black, despite African Americans making up only 32% of the state population.

This racially disproportionate rate of death has begun to emerge among other states in the deep south, America’s poorest region, where a nexus of intergenerational poverty, a greater prevalence of underlying health conditions, and less access

The drunk child in a bear suit thinks he, and he alone, gets to shout “OPEN IT UP!!” and we all have to obey.

On Saturday night, Trump said a decision to open up the economy was one he alone would make, and would be “the biggest” of his presidency. He has targeted 1 May as the date when the country may begin a return to normalcy, and in a tweet on Sunday morning cited a drop in hospitalisations as “a very good sign”.

He’s wrong on his facts though. The decision is not his alone to make, and in fact it’s not his to make at all. He’s permanently confused about this, with his talk of having “the absolute … Read the rest

Least surprising news ever:

Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he once dismissed as a hoax, has been fiercely criticised at home as woefully inadequate to the point of irresponsibility.

Yet also thanks largely to Trump, a parallel disaster is unfolding across the world: the ruination of America’s reputation as a safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner.

Of course, but that long predates the pandemic. It dates from his candidacy. The fact that an ignorant malevolent clown like him could get one of the major party nominations spelled doom for America’s reputation as a safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner. (Mind you, decades of warmongering and bullying and human rights abuses didn’t help either.)

Since

The Times has a big piece on Trump’s failure to act on the virus promptly.

“Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”

A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American

Originally a comment by Claire on For observation.

This is horrifying. Ethically, morally and legally monstrous.

Concern is mounting after a doctor at a Texas nursing home started giving the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to dozens of elderly patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and tracking the outcomes in what he’s calling an “observational study.”

This is not how observational studies work. Any clinical trial, including observational studies, must have a clearly written protocol approved by the relevant IRB. Patient recruitment is done using an IRB-approved consent form. Fully informed consent is legally required. If a patient is unable to consent, they must have a legal proxy to consent for them. Patients or their proxies must be assured that they do … Read the rest

We’re number one!

The US has suffered more confirmed coronavirus deaths than any other country and on Saturday was poised to soon reach 19,000 Covid-19 fatalities, new data indicated.

This is all the more impressive when you remember we don’t have more people that any other country – we’re far behind China and India.

By Saturday afternoon, Johns Hopkins University’s tally of US Covid-19 fatalities was at 18,860. Italy followed with 18,849. The US was also the first country to report 2,000 deaths in a single day, with 2,108 people dying in the previous 24 hours….

Also on Saturday, the New York Times published a devastating report chronicling Donald Trump’s repeated failures over several months to take the coronavirus crisis

One good thing about the virus though: it could give Trump the chance to kill the postal service and thus make voting by mail impossible, which would improve his chances of stealing another election.

Though the novel coronavirus has Americans more reliant on package delivery than ever—including for prescription medications—it has put the future of the U.S. Postal Service in danger. Not distant, far-in-the-future danger, but could-stop-operating-in-June danger. And the Trump administration, which wants to bail out foreign-flagged cruise lines, is saying the postal service is on its own.

“I spoke with the Postmaster General again today,” Rep. Gerry Connolly tweeted Thursday afternoon. “She could not have been more clear: The Postal Service will collapse without urgent intervention,

Oh good, human drug testing without consent at a nursing home, that’s not reminiscent of the Nazis at all.

Concern is mounting after a doctor at a Texas nursing home started giving the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to dozens of elderly patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and tracking the outcomes in what he’s calling an “observational study.”

Coolio, can we give untested drugs to him in an observational study?

The Food and Drug Administration has not approved the drug for the treatment of COVID-19. The U.S. National Institutes of Health is currently tracking clinical trials of the drug. Additionally, the University of Minnesota is undertaking a trial and Columbia University is as well. Results are not expected for weeks or

Via Beth Rep:

Yasssssssssss that’s definitely an excellent way to make yourself feel more feminine. So is

and

and… Read the rest